25 Jun Living a long & happy life – the American Dream

Thursday 27th September: 1830 – 1930

Brad Watson is a much-admired and widely read American author from the South. His life story itself is almost a novel, and he has written short stories and longer narratives over the course of many decades. Miss Jane, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize Award in 2017, is an exceptionally beautiful and moving narrative of a girl child born without defining sex characteristics at the beginning of the 20th century, meaning that marriage and childbearing – the two roles deemed suitable for women – were closed to her. This novel explores the nature of gender, sexuality, society, community and nature in the context of the USA throughout the last century.

Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding at the University of London and, most recently, the author of Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream.

These two exceptional writers will discuss the great American 20th Century and how women such as Miss Jane contributed to it, and how it shaped them.